14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone, Microsoft’s mobile operating system, might have started to appeal to more users out there, but it seems that its adoption rate is not as high as needed in order to help it increase its global market share.
In fact, a new report coming from Strategy Analytics claims that Windows Phone actually lost over one percent market share in the second quarter of this year when compared to the same period of time a year ago.
According to the research firm, Windows Phone ended Q2 with only 2.7 percent market share, despite the fact that it was loaded on 3.8 percent smartphones at the end of the same period of time a year ago.
“Microsoft Windows Phone continued to struggle in the United States and China, and its global smartphone market share fell from 4 percent in Q2 2013 to just 3 percent during Q2 2014,” Strategy Analytics says.
As it turns out, iOS and BlackBerry lost important market share as well year on year, with Android being the only platform to register growth.
According to the research firm, smartphone shipments totaled 295.2 million in Q2 2014, 84.6 percent of which were Android handsets. iOS accounted for 11.9 percent of these devices, while BlackBerry was loaded on 0.6 percent devices.
“Android’s domination of global smartphone shipments reached a new peak in Q2 2014, with an impressive 85 percent of all smartphones now running Google’s OS. Android’s gain came at the expense of every major rival platform,” Strategy Analytics notes.
“Like the PC market, Android is on the verge of turning smartphone platforms into a one-horse race. Its low-cost services and user-friendly software remain wildly attractive to hardware makers, operators and consumers worldwide.”
The aforementioned report also reveals the fact that the smartphone market’s growth slowed down to only 27 percent in Q2 2014, which is almost half the 49 percent growth it registered a year ago. In fact, the global smartphone growth in the current quarter is said to be the lowest registered in the past five years.
However, there are markets where the adoption rate of smartphones is still very high, including Africa and Asia. North America and Europe, on the other hand, are seeing slower growth.
Out of 295.2 million smartphones that were shipped in the second quarter of the year, 249.6 units were running under Android, 35.2 million under iOS, and only 8.0 million were running Windows Phone. BlackBerry powered only 1.9 million smartphones sold in Q2 2014.